Posts Tagged ‘mobile’

Hello future. We have now entered the age in which wireless telephone carriers launch dedicated digital cameras. AT&T announced today that it will be the first major carrier in the US to offer the Samsung Galaxy Camera. The reason this upcoming Android Jelly Bean-powered camera will be offered by phone companies in addition to standard gadget retailers is because it’s one of the first digital cameras that you can purchase a 3G/4G data plan for.Read more…

It is commonly said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It seems that US smartphone users agree, for Instagram has now passed Twitter in active user count. The legions of Instagrammers aren’t just checking their beloved social network more than their Tweeting counterparts — their eyeballs are glued on it longer as well.Read more…

One major trend in the camera industry this year is the introduction of mobile operating systems such as Android into digital cameras. By opening the door to things like Wi-Fi, data plans, and apps, camera makers are going in the same direction that phone makers went some years ago, turning their devices into what can best be described as portable computers with specialized functions (e.g. voice-calling, photography).

While covering the trend, we’ve been at a loss for what to call the new cameras. After calling the Samsung Galaxy Camera a “voiceless phonecamera” in our hands-on first-look yesterday, commenters suggested that we call the device a “smartcamera”. Bingo… that’s the term we were looking for.Read more…

Flickr’s Android app is almost one year old now, and the service is getting it ready for its birthday by pushing out an update with a fresh UI and new features. Version 1.5 introduces a new navigation menu, new explore features, metadata editing, new camera options, and more.Read more…

We’ve seen some very heavy-duty gear lugged out to cover the Olympic games in London this year: some robotic rigs, an 800mm lens that could easily weigh more than the average lady gymnast, and of course, the usual suspects in a packed camera bag. But Guardian photojournalist Dan Chung is traveling light: he’s covering the games with a simple iPhone setup.

Using different combinations of an iPhone 4s, a clip-on Schneider lens and a pair of Canon binoculars, Chung has been live-blogging all aspects of the games. His photos yield surprisingly crisp results, indoors, outdoors and even underwater through a viewing window — which again reinforces the old photographer’s adage that the best camera is the one that’s with you.

Chung uses the Snapseed app to do in-camera/phone edits. You can check out more of Chung’s work on his Guardian blog.

Huge news came out of the Facebook universe today with little to no warning: Facebook has launched its own camera app. Seemingly out of nowhere, the social networking giant has launched its own “Facebook Camera” camera app that, of course, connects directly to your Facebook account, making it that much easier to take, upload, tag, and comment on your photos. Read more…

Here’s a great diagram by Mobot that shows how the 41-megapixel sensor inside Nokia’s new 808 PureView phone stacks up against other popular sensor sizes. It’s pretty clear that they didn’t just milk a small sensor for more megapixels as a simply marketing ploy, but instead came up with a sensor that’s significantly larger than those found in other smartphones. Engadget also has a photo showing a comparison of sensor sizes, while Digital Trends has published an article on five reasons why the 41-megapixels isn’t a gimmick.

After announcing its impending arrival last year, Adobe today officially launched Photoshop Touch for the iPad and Android-powered tablets. The app offers many of Photoshop’s core tools:

Use Photoshop features designed for the tablet such as layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters to create mind-blowing images. Use new Scribble Select to easily keep and remove elements of an image.

Nokia dropped a bomb on the cameraphone market today by introducing its new 808 PureView phone — a phone that is capable of capturing 41-megapixel photos. The native resolution of the phone (16:9) produces 38-megapixel images measuring 7152×5368. The phone also allows you to capture 5-megapixel images by condensing every seven pixels into one, which dramatically reduces noise and improves image quality. Other features include a 4-inch screen, 16GB of built-in storage, a Carl Zeiss f/2.4 lens, lossless digital zoom (i.e. cropping a photo out of the giant image), and HD video recording. It’ll hit store shelves in May at a price of €450 (~$600).Read more…